The racist legacy of Star Trek

Some people may not realize this but Star Trek is a racist program when it comes to people of African descent. And who created Star Trek? A white man did so this is no surprise.

We shall review the facts:

The original television series - The one African character, Uhura is nothing more than a telephone operator and note how she sits at the BACK of the bridge. She also protrayed as an object of lust.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The first Star Trek film released in 1979 features no new African characters which is odd considering that by the 23rd Century there will be over 6 billion Africans on Earth and less than a billion white people. Yet the Enterprise crew appears to 99.9% white.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – This is one of the most despicable and racist of the Star Trek films. An African Starfleet captain played by the late Paul Winfield is captured by an evil white man and controlled like house slave with an alien slug placed in his brain. Later, after failing his “master”, Winfield’s character kills himself in shame for failing to serve the commands of his white master.

Star Trek: The Voyage Home – We learn in this film that the Federation of Planets (which is supposed to be diverse union of many races) is led by a white alien.

Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country – An African Starfleet Admiral played by the late Brock Peters is portrayed as being an evil, untrustworthy character.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – This new series has African actors play characters who are either blind (Geordi La Forge) with the temperament of a house slave or violent aliens such as Lieutenant Worf.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Star Trek manages to redeem itself somewhat with the character of Benjamin Sisko. The series begins with an evil pale alien creature refusing to help Sisko save his wife but at the end of the series it turns out his character is not really African at all but some kind of alien puppet whose fate is controlled by beings who appear to be white women.

Star Trek: Insurrection – In this Star Trek film, the Enterprise comes across and defends an all-white race who are being attacked by a darker skin tone people.

Star Trek: Nemesis - At the end of this film, Picard selects another white male to be his First Officer.

 

I disagree. The people behind the original Star Trek made great efforts to have diversity on the bridge, and in other places in the Trek universe. As for the other examples, I think you're searching hard for it, and since you're looking for racism, you will find it.

 

Chuckle. Welp, I used to think that Star Trek was about equality and stuff, but this post has helped me see the error of my ways.

 

Conveniently ignoring Tuvok I see.

 

^ And Admiral Morrow from ST III.

Call back when you actually remember the rec room scene.

Uh, no, Terrell sacrifices his own life rather than murder fellow Starfleet officers. And hardly does so in shame; more like, he's proud to give his life in the line of duty.

I would hardly describe Ra-ghoratreii as a "white alien". His hair, maybe, but that'd be it.

The Bajoran Prophets as "white women"? Son'a as "darker skin tone people"?

Put your eye doctor on danger money. NOW.

In a deleted scene which, therefore, isn't canon.

 

But his screen name is Afrika Bambaata and he says "it is well known". What more do you need?

 

Hey, the guy Picard chose was less white than Data, so there.

 

And for somebody who boldly proclaims that we SHALL review the facts...he didn't give any.

 

I never chime in on race-related things, mainly because I see no difference in people. It occurred to me recently that when I was a little kid, my favorite comic book characters were the Falcon and the Black Panther. I didn't care what danged color they were...they were just good guys.

For what it's worth, I'm convinced that Star Trek helped my little kid mind form its world view. Kirk's remark to Alexander in Plato's Stepchildren about "Where I come from, size, shape and color makes no difference." really resonated with me.

Modern media is so pathologically obsessed with portraying so-called divisions (white/black/rich/poor/right/left/male/female) that it's reached way beyond absurd, and I'm sure does far more harm than good. I refuse to play that game.

In Star Trek II, Captain Terrell made the ultimate sacrifice to basically defeat the plan of Khan. He didn't "fail to serve his master"...in his own way he beat him!

 

Trek is less a vision of the future and more a vision of how White America perceives the world (via the alien races encountered by the Enterprise) and the racial dynamics of America (by the racial composition of the crew). It's not surprising why there is no serious African American character in there until DS9, which came out in the 90s.

I believe he is Vulcan.

 

Umm...no...not even close...but as was stated, if you look for it, you will find it...whether it is there or not.

 

It's the same guy from the DS9 forum or is it the night of the trolls?

Oh, and the worse of all: In TFF we see a black Vulcan woman as midwife...it's the first black Vulcan woman we ever see and her job is helping a WASP woman to give birth.

 

Rather ironic that Mr. Spambot here gives a lot of examples that really AREN'T racist, but completely forgot the one episode that actually IS (Code of Honor).

 

You forget The Pegazus: The Black Romulan Commander is green! GREEEEN!

 

Did you notice the only green people we see in Star Trek are either slaves, or brutes? Stereotype much?!

 

Always some poster gotta invoke Tuvok. Bust this: Those TV shows and movies are about how the white man keeps the brother man down, even on the far side of the galaxy. Check this shit: You got farm boy Jean-Luc Picard, Nazi poster boy, skinhead, blue eyes. And then you got Worf, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Klingon god!

Now... Worf, he's a spiritual brother, y'know, down with Sto-vo-kor and all that good shit. Then this captain, Picard, gets assimilated and the boy decides he's gonna run the fuckin' universe; gets a whole clan of whites together. And they go and bust up Worf's hood, the Enterprise. Now what the fuck do you call that?

Gentrification! They gon' drive out the black element to make the galaxy quote, unquote, safe for white zombies. And First Contact is the most insulting installment! Because Worf's beautiful vessel is sullied and he has to be rescued by the same feeble, crusty, old white man! They tryin' to tell us that deep inside we all want to be saved by the whites!

Black rage!

 

Last time I read a diatribe as angry as the original post was in 1970, when I bought a newspaper from some genuine Black Panthers in Forest Park. They were very polite.

 

No.

 

All of this makes me feel ashamed to be a black man.

 

I didn't see your post when I made basically the same point. Apologies for that!